"New Super Mario Bros fails to live up to it's own standards of innovation and potential, but is an otherwise great game."

Score:
Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 9
Sound: 7
Value: 6
Tilt: 9

Overall: 7.8

The Good: Incorporates some elements from the winning Mario formula; Luigi is playable; great use of 3D graphics with classic 2D gameplay; quite a few secrets to be unlocked; Mario has a bunch of new extremely useful abilities that were carried over from Super Mario 64; the new powers ups are neat.

The Bad: Fails to live up to its own potential; fails to live up to its own standards of innovation; some levels are way too short; Mario veterans can plow through most of the game in 2 hours; lack of innovative power ups causes the majority of the game to be played using only the fire flower; the classic star power theme has been replaced with the wing cap theme from Super Mario 64; music for the most part is repetitive; you can only save after you beat a castle or open a mushroom house, until you beat the game.

New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS is the first Mario game in 14 years. After Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo, Mario took a long vacation from his 2D adventures. The Mario franchise was reinvented with the release of the Nintendo 64, along with Super Mario 64. No longer was Mario a 2D sidescroller, it was now a 3D platformer. For years afterwards Mario has been involved in many other types of games including a disappointing sequel to Super Mario 64 known as Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube, and a bunch of other spin-offs like Mario Kart, Mario Gold, Mario Tennis, Mario Party and the list goes on and on and on. What Mario never did do however, was return to his 2D roots where he originated.

New Super Mario Bros. is nowhere near a bad game at all. It's a very well made game, and one of the most polished games on the DS. Where New Super Mario Bros. fails is its lack of innovation and the fact that it fails miserably to live up to its own potential. It's easy to play NSMB and think wow this game is great, I forgot how awesome 2D Mario games are! That's the problem. People don't take a moment to say “Hey, wait a minute, this is Mario but where's that unique greatness that only Mario games have provided?” Let me tell you, it's simply not there. The original Super Mario game was a revolution in video gaming all on its own, and in a sense NSMB is very similar to the original Mario Bros, especially in the simplicity of its design and gameplay. The original Super Mario is an amazing game, but most of its sequels have far surpassed it. Those games are Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World. Granted, Super Mario Bros. 2 might not be the best Mario game, and it is quite odd, but at least it's innovative. The odd reactions that people had to SMB2 caused the developers to return Mario to his origins in SMB3. Remember all those crazy power ups? Remember Koribu's shoe, the tanooki suit, and the hammer bros. suit? Those things along with the superb level design, secrets, and gameplay made SMB3 one of the best games of all time and the best selling game of all time. Then there was Super Mario World. Super Mario World didn't have as many power ups as SMB3 but what it didn't have in power ups it made up for in unique level design, expanded levels thanks to the ability to fly with the cape, and so many secrets it's hard to count them all. New Super Mario Bros. tries to play it safe by relying on Mario's most basic assets. You have the fire flower, the starman, and the most basic Mario gameplay reminiscent of the original Super Mario Bros. There's absolutely nothing wrong with, you just expect more out of a Mario game when it's released. You can't defend a game like this because it set the standards itself, so when a game like this fails to live up the standards that it shaped single handedly it's hard not to be disappointed by it.

That's not to say that game isn't great though, quite the opposite, NSMB is a really fun game. The fact alone that it's a new 2D Mario game is enough reason alone to buy it, but it's not enough of a reason to say that it's a triple A game. Mario has some new power ups and some new moves this time around. He's got access to the koopa suit, the giant mushroom, and the tiny mushroom. These additions are fun and all, but they just aren't as good as the many power ups in Super Mario Bros. 3 and the classic cape power up from Super Mario World. The reason why they are so forgettable is because the game rarely ever gives the player access to these items. The giant mushroom is rarely available in levels and can usually only be obtained at mushroom houses on the world map. You can keep it in your storage and use it later when needed. The thing about the giant mushroom is that it's basically the exact same thing as the starman. It makes Mario turn huge and destroy everything, but he is still invincible, so it's almost the same effect. The only difference between the two is that with the giant mushroom Mario destroys always everything in his path, including the level, and depending on how much destruction you caused in your rampage you will be awarded some 1-ups. The tiny mushroom on the other hand is the definition of useless. It causes Mario to be far too weak to accomplish anything other than squeezing down small secret pipes that are a huge rarity. The koopa suit is the most interesting of the bunch but like the other new power ups its rarely available and just isn't as practical as the fire flower which is disappointing. What is does is allow you to glide along the ground like a kicked koopa shell to instantly kill enemies. The other returning power ups like the starman and the fire flower are just as useful as ever, but the fire flower is in such over-abundance that you will pretty much go through the entire game using it and rarely anything else.

The new moves that Mario has are really great additions though, many times where I've thought that I was going to fall to my doom I was able to wall jump my way out of doom. For those who are unaware the wall jump is a move Mario picked up in Super Mario 64 where he could bounce between two nearby walls to reach unimaginable heights. It's rarely actually required to be used in NSMB but it's often extremely useful. He has inherited his ground pound ability which makes hitting blocks easier because you can simply ground pound them from above if hitting them from under is unsafe. Finally there is the triple jump from Super Mario 64 which is a neat addition but I can only remember one instance where it was necessary to perform.

Like SMB3 and SMW, NSMB takes place on a world map where you can choose the next level you'd like to visit. Many levels have secret exits but they usually don't lead too much other than an alternate path or a new level you may not have had access to before. The problem is that there really isn't any motivation to find these secrets because you don't get anything for finding them like in the other games. One of the most irritating things about NSMB is that two of the eight worlds are “secret” worlds and you never even have to go to them in order to beat them. Now it wouldn't have really been a problem if the game had two secret worlds, that would have been cool but it doesn't. Instead, they took two levels out of the sequence of the eight and made them difficult to find access to.

One aspect of the game that is especially frustrating is that Nintendo went through all of the trouble of individualizing Luigi from Mario in all of the remakes of the old Mario games. In Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World for the GBA Luigi was altered to have his signature float jump and slightly slower running speeds. They even made him play this way in Super Mario 64 DS which was surprising. But what makes things worse is that in New Super Mario Bros. he is a carbon-copy of Mario just like all of the old games. A big “wtf” there.

The boss fights are decent but they are also extremely simplistic. The older games made it so you had to jump or attack the boss three times to defeat them, but in NSMB you basically have a few battles against Baby Bowser where he gets slightly more “difficult” each time. He never really actually gets hard though, he just runs back and forth and slides himself inside his shell hoping you will jump on him. But any experienced Mario players know better than to fall for an insulting tactic like this. I've been playing Mario games for years, and I know better than to fall for a silly trick like that. The most interesting boss fight is against a tank type boss which is pretty fun and better than the Baby Bowser fights, and there is also a fight against a giant piranha. These fights are more interesting but they still really aren't that difficult.

One of New Super Mario Bros. best additions is the new four player mini-games. Most of the mini-games are recycled from Super Mario 64 but there are a couple new ones and some of them are multiplayer. There is also a forgettable multiplayer mode where you play as Mario and Luigi to collect stars and battle each other, but what happened to that promised 2 player game that Nintendo spoke of where players would have to cooperate to complete levels? It looks like it was lost in the production process which is unfortunate.

The graphics in New Super Mario Bros. are pretty cool; the game looks really nice and has a clean interface. The 3D graphics blend really nice with the more 2D looking backgrounds to create a faithful update of the old style. It's basically the old Mario games but with 3D graphics which looks really cool. The animations are all superb and the enemy designs are also faithful to their originals. However some of the new enemies look a little bizarre but it's not a big deal.

The music on the other hand is also a mixed bag. On one hand for the most part it sounds really well, and on the other hand it's actually really annoying. For some reason they decided to add this “bah-bah” woman signing into all of the tracks in the game which becomes really repetitive and annoying after a while. It's nothing huge but it's still unnecessary. On the other hand the majority of the music is composed quite well besides the woman signing along with the music. The music does also become quite repetitive, but because it's pretty good music it's not that bad. The sound effects are all spot-on, so there's a big plus there. Its great hearing Mario's classic jump sounds back in a Mario game.

New Super Mario Bros. is also pretty short, it's really fun while it lasts but for people that know Mario games like myself you can pretty much blaze through it in less than 3 hours. There's still some extra stuff to be found and some of the levels are really cool, but too many of them are too short and it's kind of disappointing because there isn't a super large incentive to back and play. All New Super Mario Bros. does is make you long for the great Mario games of old and probably go back to play those instead. New Super Mario Bros. is a great game for long-time Mario fans and newcomers, but if you haven't played any of the old games you definitely should because you might reconsider calling this the “best” Mario game ever made, because as a long-time devoted Mario fan I consider calling this the best Mario game ever made an insult. It's a nice try Nintendo, and it's great to see that your willing to revive that classic Mario gameplay, you've aimed for the bulls-eye but you've missed by a couple of inches.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/28/07